We woke this morning with the sun coming through the windows of our bungalow and waves crashing on the shore. After untangling ourselves from our mosquito net bed (we actually did have to kind of untangle ourselves from it), we walked 20 feet outside of our door to a table under a thatched roof right on the beach for some breakfast. Chris had the "Island Benedict" and Aly had the coconut french toast. Chris ordered orange juice. Figuring that it would be as fresh as all the other juice we've had...they ended up bringing us a bottle of what looked like cheap orange soda, and tasted about the same. Despite the crappy orange juice, this breakfast continued the momentum of delicious food.

As we were sitting there enjoying one of the most amazing meals ever, Billy (the hotel manager) and Elvis (a local snorkeling guide) came up to us to see if we wanted to go on a snorkeling excursion to a nearby reef. We were certainly interested, and we scheduled a time for 1:00 PM

. We even convinced our new Swiss friends to join us. As we finished up our breakfast and coffee, we decided to take a walking tour around the island. Chris decided to hike barefoot, to get the true "island" experience.

We started off in search of a tower on the island that supposedly gives a great 360 view of the entire island. We found it, climbed up to the top and were blown away by the view. Even during this season, where it apparently rains every day, we saw blue skies, sun, and crystal clear sapphire blue Caribbean water. We could even see Big Corn Island in the distance. After soaking in the view and taking way too many pictures, we climbed down and continued our hike around the island, finding many "paths" indicated by hand painted wooden signs nailed on trees.

We walked through canopies of palm, mango, and almond trees, finding lizards, spiders, and snakes (and the occasional chicken) along the way. According to the locals, there are no poisonous spiders or snakes on the island. Good thing, cuz we saw LOTS of both. We felt like the only people on the island. Finally, the path emerged onto another part of the coast on the northern part of the island. We started walking along the beach in hopes that it would take us back to our beach/hotel, but ran into many rocks and deep water along the way, forcing us to go back into the "jungle" and find our own way

. It was not an easy hike but was great to see other parts of the island not usually explored. And Chris walked the whole thing barefoot, just like the local Islanders!

We were grateful when we saw the palm-thatched roofs of Little Corn Beach and Bungalow and had time for lunch before snorkeling. We were greeted by "Albert" who had two coconuts waiting for us with the tops cut off and straws and a machete ready to cut open the fruit after we drank the juice. We sat down at the Turned Turtle restaurant for lunch and had fresh coconut meat for an appetizer. Patricia (another traveler from Switzerland) joined us for lunch as well.

Rachel and Toby decided to come along for snorkeling, so we boarded Elvis's panga and headed to the reef on the north side of the island. There, we saw seven reef sharks, lobsters, a manta ray, and lots of brightly colored fish swimming around. Our guide was a local islander and he could easily spy all kinds of sea life from the surface. The depth ranged from 10 feet to about 30-40 feet. Our guide would point out a reef shark resting on the reef floor and he would dive down, touch it's tail, and it would gently swim away. Chris was getting tons of this on video with his GoPro camera. As we swam along, the guide pointed out another reef shark in about 30 feet of water and pointed to Chris to dive down and touch it. Chris of course jumped at the opportunity and handed the GoPro to Alyson. After about a minute of breath prepping, Chris turned feet up and dove straight to the bottom and gently tugged on the sharks tail. It slowly swam away and Chris wasted no time getting to the surface. Aly did a great job getting it all on video! Surprisingly, the sharks tail felt like sandpaper. Snorkeling was definitely one of the best activities we have done so far

. The water felt perfect, and it was great to just be out on a boat in the ocean. We came back to LCBB and rinsed the salt water out of our mouths with a delicious pina colada and Tona and sat at the beach reviewing our pictures and snorkel videos until it was dinner time.

That night, we had another amazing, 4 course dinner at LCBB with Rachel and Toby. Chris had the special of the night- filet mignon with gorgonzola sauce while Aly had the lobster, freshly caught off the island. A meal that would have easily cost us over $100, was about $30. It was absolutely amazing. Oh, and not to mention the fresh margaritas (limit 3) and chocolate cake. About this time we found out that there was a complication with Rachel and Toby's reservations for the remainder of their trip and that they would not have a place to stay. So, seeing that we had an extra full-size bed in our bungalow, we invited them to stay an extra night in our room which they graciously accepted and we were happy to have them there for another day. If we all lived in the same country, we would definitely be great friends. We know thew would certainly have done the same for us.

Since it gets dark there at 6 pm, by the time we were finished with dinner it felt like it was at least midnight and after an active day in the sun, we were ready to turn in and get rested up for another day on the island.